This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Phyllis Laatsch. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Historical category.
The summary:
Every New Year’s Eve since 1946, Nate Meyer has ventured alone to Times Square to listen for the ghostly church bells he and his long-lost wartime lover vowed to hear together. This year, however, his grandson Blaine is pushing Nate through the Manhattan streets, revealing his secrets to his silent, stroke-stricken grandfather.
When Blaine introduces his boyfriend to his beloved grandfather, he has no idea that Nate holds a similar secret. As they endure the chilly death of the old year, Nate is drawn back in memory to a much earlier time . . . and to Walter.
Long before, in a peace carefully crafted in the heart of wartime tumult, Nate and Walter forged a loving home in the midst of violence and chaos. But nothing in war is permanent, and now all Nate has is memories of a man his family never knew existed. And a hope that he’ll finally hear the church bells that will unite everybody—including the lovers who hid the best and most sacred parts of their hearts.
Here is Phyllis Laatsch's review:
I have to admit right up front that I would not have picked this book if I had been one of the first to sign up for Smart Bitches’ RITA Reviews instead of one of the last.
But holy cow, am I glad I did.
Nate is an old man in a wheelchair who has had a stroke and is living with his daughter. His grandson has come by to take him out to Times Square to listen for the church bells that allegedly rang there on New Year’s Eve during WWII, which Grandpa Nate always went out to try to hear – but has never heard. The grandson also wants Grandpa Nate to meet his boyfriend.
Turns out, SPOILER ALERT, Grandpa is gay! Nate has been living deep in the closet except for that one time when he got shot down in France and was rescued by an escaped American POW. The risk of being captured by Nazis is exacerbated because Nate is Jewish and likely to get sent straight to a concentration camp instead of a POW camp (which would be bad enough).
I don’t typically read M/M romance and the sex scenes were a bit much. I skimmed. But the intensity of the physical and emotional love between Nate and Walter was amazing. Their initial attraction is huge, but both – especially Nate – are unwilling to bring up the subject, having faced discrimination (Walter) and knowing that what he wants is a major, unrecoverable sin in his religion (Nate).
I had some problems with the motivation of the local Resistance fighters. I don’t want to give too much away, but a major, climactic turning point had me saying, “HUH?” That’s really the only reason I couldn’t give it a straight A.
I don’t know if the book is a) traditional enough (since it’s a M/M romance and Nate doesn’t get an HEA), or b) strong enough in the impressive Short Historical field to win the RITA. But I am glad to have “discovered” Amy Lane and hope others do, too.
I’m so happy to see m/m (and hopefully other LGBTQ romance) better integrated into the RITAs (maybe they did this previously, and I just noticed it now). Yay!
I’ll be honest, I’m an mm fan and I avoided this one because Amy Lane can be much too angsty for me, but this sounds pretty good. Thanks for the review.
Amy Lane is solidly on my auto-buy list, although The Bells of Times Square isn’t one I’m likely to re-read lots to be honest. Here are some of my personal recommendations:
* Clear Water – fabulous book! A young man whose ADHD has lasted into adulthood finds refuge on a barge with two science-geeks who are trying to work out why the river is spawning mutant toads. m/m (and a little f/f)
* The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters – first in a series, all excellent. The series combines knitting and m/m (!), with a dash of remote location, slow courtships, fleeing/shaking your past. Even contains a knitting pattern for a cock-cozy.
* It’s Not Shakespeare. White college professor who moves across the country in shame after being taken for a ride by his ex, meets younger, hotter Latino man. Also contains a dog named Marlowe.
* A Solid Core of Alpha. Sci-fi m/m in which a twenty three year old man is found to have spent the last ten years of his life alone on his family’s space ship, staving off madness (only just!) with his amazing adaptations to the ship’s AI. He now needs to integrate as a man into society he last saw as a child.
* Chase in Shadow. First in the Johnnies series about men making gay porn (for a pretty decent studio). Series contains major angst (tissues must be kept on hand), men in the closet, pregnancy, depression, suicide attempts, cool reptiles, rehab, tips for diet/personal cleansing/clothing choices best suited to gay porn shoots.
I read this book too, and really enjoyed it! It was my first m/m romance, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, there were only two things that were really different from other romance novels – the, for lack of a better term, mechanics of the sex scenes and the fact that there wasn’t a traditional HEA. However, I thought the book ended about as happy as it could have, under the circumstances, and I felt pretty good about the ending. I’m a history nerd, so I loved the history aspects of it, and I ended up really liking the characters.
Gemma, a friend of mine said a similar thing, that this wasn’t Lane’s best work. I would guess that this was the one that lucked out with the first round judges and/or the historical element hit a nerve with them. M/M isn’t my thing, but I was very impressed.
Here are a few other mm historical recommendations (they all have hfns or heas)
Snowball in Hell by Josh Lanyon – set in LA during WWII, with a mystery as well as a romance. Iirc, the sex is not very graphic.
Think of England by KJ Charles – British house party mystery / romance.
Blessed Isle by Alex Beecroft – Georgian age of sail romance complete with shipwrecks and a mutiny.
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller – ff historical set in 19th C Conneticut and upstate NY
Amy Lane is an autobuy author for me. I started with Christmas Kitsch and disappeared down the rabbit hole of all her books for a month or two after that. Her creativity is off the charts.
Clear Water is now on sale for a dollar on Amazon as well as other mm favourites like Promises by Marie Sexton and Hot Head by Damon Suede. Safe in His Arms by Renae Kaye is also a sweet story. The dollar titles are listed on the Dreamspinner Press website.